Residents on a remote island in the Northern Territory were shocked to see what looked like a Viking ship sail past yesterday.Police say they received a report of residents seeing the unusual boat off the coast of Elcho Island in Arnhem Land.

Why did people call the police ? Did they think they were going to be raided and plundered by actual vikings ? Have they never seen a replica ship ?

"Police and local rangers patrolled the area and came across the vessel with swords drawn," Watch Commander Gary Smith said.

Swords ? Who had swords ? The police ? The "Vikings" ? I don't realy get that part.

As for the the Viking invasion - I don't get it either. "Calling the police" on Elcho might involve a CB if the cop had gone fishing, but in all likelihood was just "Oi, Frank, look over there." I guess a Viking ship passing was probably just about the most interesting thing that's happened there since the Chooky Dancers' Zorba went viral, and considering that everyone was standing around staring it would just have been plain rude if someone hadn't called the police. He'd have felt snubbed, which is serious business in a small town.

Actually, on seeing a few other articles it appears that the locals thought the viking ship might be transporting refugees - which has unfortunately been a hot button issue here for years.

So they weren't so much worried about vikings plundering their women and cattle as a handful of foreigners sneaking into the country and destroying our job-market/economy/culture/precious bodily fluids.

A Chicago advocacy group says that the restaurant Chick-fil-A has promised to back away from funding socially conservative groups that have pressed to limit marriage to one man and one woman.

The apparent decision by the chain's WinShape Foundation would mark a retreat from the summer's culture war pitting advocates of marriage equality against conservative claims that the chain was under assault for simple free speech. The comments came, the group The Civil Rights Agenda said, in correspondence with a Chicago alderman who had opposed the chain's expansion to the city.

“The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas," the chain is said to have written in a letter to Alderman Proco Moreno. The Chicago group added in a press release: "In meetings the company executives clarified that they will no longer give to anti-gay organizations, such as Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage."

Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti said he encountered the woman in the street while on his way to the mosque in the town of Shahmirzad, and asked her to cover herself up, to which she replied “you, cover your eyes,” according to Mehr. The cleric repeated his warning, which he said prompted her to insult and push him. “I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”

A new respiratory illness similar to the Sars virus that spread globally in 2002 and killed hundreds of people has been identified in a man who is being treated in Britain.The 49-year-old man, who was transferred to a London hospital by air ambulance from Qatar, is the second person confirmed with the coronavirus.The first case was a patient in Saudi Arabia who has since died.

Both from the Middle East... Fox News must be warming-up their hysterical headline generator by now.